Sunday, August 21, 2011

I realize that many of you love watching football and wait for the season to start as avidly as any man. I am not one of those people. In fact, I dread the start of the season (which seems to be getting longer every year). If it's just me and Hubster at home, then it's okay because he doesn't watch it (unless it's the Super Bowl). However, I had forgotten just how obsessed my mother is with the game. It doesn't matter who is playing, where they're playing, or what night/day of the week it is. If it's a football game, she watches it. If it's the San Francisco 49'ers playing, though, all movement in the house comes to a grinding halt. She's been a Niner's fan my entire life and probably many, many years before I came along. This weekend was the Battle of the Bay - the Niner's played the Oakland Raiders. I especially dread those games - she yells at the TV, stomps around the house if the Niner's do something stupid (which is about 99% of the time - this is no longer the team Montana and Rice played together on), and insists on telling me about the players as if I know who the hell they are. I sit here, roll my eyes, try to knit, and generally ignore her. Then when a play is really fucked up, she takes it out on the nearest person. That's usually me, since my chair is conveniently placed right next to her couch. It's such a joyous thing to share the game with her.

Today was especially horrible. She's been watching tennis and football since 9:00 a.m. It's now 7:45 p.m., and she's watching Sunday Night Football. I'm sorry to say that this is the only working TV in the house. I'm even sorrier to say that she has complete and total control of the remote control. Sigh. I haven't been able to watch one stinking show all day and won't be able to until 11:00 p.m. when she goes to bed. I'm so overfuckingwhelmed with happiness that I can't even begin to express my complete and utter joy. (gag barf)

But all this is about to change.

You see, yesterday was something of a milestone. It actually began on Friday.

Friday, Hubster and I went to look at a house.

Saturday, we bought it. (g)

Yes, you read that right. Saturday, we bought it. (even bigger grin)

About a week ago, I was browsing through Craig's List looking for a rental when I came across this cute little house in a Delta town called Oakley. Those of you who live out here will know whereof I speak. It's about an hour from Mom's house (even though it's actually only 35 miles away). The house was owned by a company which buys distressed properties, rehabs them, and then either does a straight lease or a lease to own program with you. I talked it over with Hubster, and we decided to give it a whirl and see if we could qualify. Since the company bases their decisions mostly on income (although credit does play a role in the process), I had some hope. So we filled out the forms, submitted all our paperwork, and sat back to wait. This was on Wednesday.

We were approved on Thursday and made an appointment to see thiis house on Friday.

It's a small house - three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a very small kitchen. However, it's in a good neighborhood, has enough room for all our shit (I hope I didn't underestimate just how much shit we actually have), and came with some surprises which were unexpected but most welcome. One, in particular, sealed the deal.

It has a pool. A large, deep pool. (HUGE shit-eating grin)

So I told the realtor that we wanted to begin the program with the purchase of that particular house. We paid the money required (courtesy of my football-crazed mother - thank you), signed a bunch of papers, and got the keys.

It's now ours, and we've begun moving the stuff out of our trucks into it.

Hubster is going to call tomorrow to see how much it will cost to get that pod moved up here so we can really move in. For the time being, we're sort of in limbo, with some of our stuff there and us being physically here. I can't wait for the day (and may it be SOON) that we spend our first night there. It's right next to one of the sloughs of the Delta, so we get these lovely breezes. It will be pure heaven to be in a quiet, peaceful house. And for the first time since we lost our home, we'll have - I'll have - security. I won't feel like our home will be snatched out from under us. This is our home, and I still haven't wrapped my head around it yet. If I die by the end of the year, it won't matter - I'll die in OUR home. I haven't felt this kind of deep, inner peace in a very long time.

This company is a wonderful thing. They specialize in helping people with problems like ours to get back into a nice home in a safe area. They also have programs which teach you fiscal responsibility, help you clean up your credit, and work with you to come up with a viable budget. They also won't sell you a house if it doesn't meet affordable ratio standards. Fortunately, we could have spent another grand a month in house payments and still qualified, but we really don't need anything bigger or fancier. We both love this place and look forward to making it our own. I'm going to Lowe's or Home Depot tomorrow to look at paint cards so I can paint one of the walls in the family room (and one in the dining area). In fact, tomorrow will be very busy, since I'm taking the family out to see it, going to HD, hitting the DMV for a replacement DL and a new handicapped placard, and then have to call all the utilities to switch them into our name. I'll probably collapse at the end of the day, but it'll be a good collapse.

So that's the really huge news which I've been dying to share with all of you.

The other bit of news is neither good nor happy. It concerns Grandma.

In just a few short weeks, she's gone from being mostly lucid to mostly a stranger. She doesn't recognize me for several minutes; when she finally does, she bursts into tears, wants a hug, and proceeds to tell me that she's being abused. She also is seeing things running around her room - cats, mice, little black creatures, litte girls, a woman - doesn't comprehend anything you tell her - you can tell her something and think she gets it, but as soon as you leave the room, she asks you the same question - keeps us up all night with her screaming and calling for each of us, shits the bed (even though she has to wear a diaper, as I told you in my last post, she removes all her clothes), falls out of bed, blah blah blah. This is going to sound terrible, but I wish she'd have another massive stroke and just be at peace. My grandma is gone, and even though I'm already grieving, this nasty person is inhabiting her body. She's already beginning her nightly screamfest; this will go on until about 5:00 a.m. We get a two- to three-hour reprieve from around midnight to about 3:00 a.m., but then her sleeping pills wear off and she's at it again. It's truly horrible, and if I'm unfortunate enough to find myself in her position, I only hope that I have enough pills to do the job.

Speaking of medical shit, my pain doc wants to insert a very large needle in my spine, feed two wires next to my spinal cord, make a pocket in my hip for the battery pack, and wean me off the narcotics. I'm really leery of this whole thing and have a lot of thinking to do. It's supposed to send electric pulses up and down my back and block out the pain. I have two questions (Paula, please forgive me for repeating this, and if I mentioned it in my last post, just skip over it):

1. Do I turn it on by squeezing my ass cheeks together, or does Hubster spank me?

and

2. Do I have a really huge orgasm when it turns on?

All goofing around aside, I would be wide awake during the procedure, it would hurt like hell, and recovery takes about a week. There's also no guarantee that it would work (they do a trial run before they actually insert the battery pack). If he inserts the needle just a tad off center, though... well, let's just say that I'll get around town strapped to a skateboard or something.

Decisions.

The only decision I'm making tonight is to stop typing, drink my coffee, and watch a show I want to see from 9:00 to 10:00, at which time the football fanatic takes back over.

Saturday, August 6, 2011

We're living at Mom's now - have been since shortly after my birthday - and I can't wait to get the hell out of here. I had forgotten just how loudly and often my mother screams (and I mean SCREAMS) at everything she doesn't like - my grandmother, the kids, my TV programs, the very air we all breathe. Grandma seems to have become a nudist in her old age and takes off her diaper (and whatever clothing she happens to have on) several times during the night. She cries, she sees things, she thinks she has to get up and clean/cook/whatever, she yells, she falls out of bed (and looks like she's been beaten because of all the bruises on her face from smacking into the dresser), and exposes herself to Hubster every chance she gets. He, of course, is totally grossed out by that old wrinkled thing. I'm not sure how to feel. I know she's not my grandma anymore and can't really help herself, but it still bothers me that she's essentially hitting on my old man. Mostly though, I've got to get away from the screaming and the stupid Hallmark channel movies (and Lifetime movies, and tennis, and soon to be football, and tennis, and any movie older than the hills which Mom watches nonstop). It's gotten to the point where I don't care if we live in a studio apartment - just somewhere I can call our own. I'm going to start looking in a couple of weeks and hope that Hubster gives me the green light to go see some. Right now, Mom is sleeping on the couch with some stupid dance show blaring on the TV (but don't dare tell her that she sleeps during her TV time - she yells that she isn't and then won't talk to you). I'm telling you, she's an old woman with the attitude of a very nasty child. How did I ever manage to live here for the first 25 years of my life?

On the brighter side of things, we're going to some huge outdoor festival in Fremont tomorrow. Even though we're saving as much money as possible so we can get a nice apartment, Hubster senses that I need to get out of here and buy something totally useless. I'm thinking I'll get a nice piece of sculputure or wood carving (or anything to do with knitting) for our new place. There are about 650 juried vendors at this thing and tons of food (bless the Bay Area - I can get a linguisa sandwich from the Knights of Columbus). He's sticking me in the wheelchair since I'll never make it walking, and I'd like to see as much as possible. We were going to go today, but he was so exhausted that I thought it was better for him to sleep I was right. Now he's in a wonderful mood, is well-rested, and ready to go. I know he doesn't particularly like festivals like this, but he's doing it for me. Between his job and my grandmother, he's up pretty much all night. I'm sure glad he still has plenty of stamina, but he's going to wind down pretty soon.

I also bought this online sock knitting course from Crafty (advertised by Vogue Knitting). It looks really interesting. The teacher shows you how to do all kinds of heels, toes, cast-ons and -offs, etc. I like having things like that handy, especially with my shitty memory. There are also a lot of things to be learned from the course, and once you buy it, you can watch it as many times as you want. I've also gotten some new books - "Sock Knitting Master Class" and "Knitting Socks From Around The World". There are several others which haven't been released yet - that huge book on knitting (I have the original, which is in a white dust jacket) has been updated and filled with new information, Clara Parkes' book on socks, and about four others which are coming out at various times during the rest of the year. Oh... I also got Cookie A's newest book, "eat. knit. sock" (or something like that). All of them are really good. I just finished reading a book on the history of knitting (No Idle Hands?) and am reading "The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook". Between that, working on socks, and smoking as much dope as is humanly possible, I'm managing to stay sane. And (happy day!) the old head shop in Livermore is still there, so I can buy any supplies which I might need. Oh fuck... I just lit a cancer stick and now have my mother on my ass about how many ciggies I'm smoking. SAVE ME.

One of my old swap partners dropped me a note last week saying that she's knit me a few things and also picked up some goodies which she thought I might enjoy. She's thinking she'll mail the package sometime this week. I can't wait! She couldn't have timed it any better had she tried. It gives me something to look forward to. I had knit her a sheep and worked with Tom Golding to design her a custom drop spindle (among other things) for the swap we were in, and she's become a good friend. I certainly didn't expect this, though.

Well, now that I've bitched, moaned, and complained, I'll bring this entry to a close. I think I'm going to have to start blogging more regularly instead of waiting months between entries. At least with all the shit going on, I actually have something to say.

I have to look for the silver lining, or I'll be eating the barrel of a gun.